The Dark Side of Powerpuff
by D.L. SchizoAuthoress
Summary: UPDATED April 24, 2006 [5 of ?] The Powerpuff Girls, now fifteen years old, have some new enemies. The past is dark and full of secrets, and when they are revealed, who can the girls trust? [chapter summaries in fic]
1. New Girls in the City

Title: The Dark Side of Powerpuff  
  
Author: SchizoAuthoress  
  
Rating: R  
  
Warnings: Extreme violence, language, death  
  
Summary: Ten years after the current series, the fifteen-year-old Powerpuff Girls are living a semi-normal life as superheroes on hiatus. But there are shadows over Professor Utonium's past, and they may destroy Townsville…unless the Girls can figure out a way to defeat enemies that are, in essence, the dark side of themselves: The Sourpuff Girls.  
  
"The Dark Side of Powerpuff: New Girls in the City"  
  
A multi-colored trail of energy arched over the Townsville suburb of Pokey Oaks, a now-familiar phenomenon to the city. The three sisters Utonium, the Powerpuff Girls, were on their way to South Townsville High.  
  
Mere minutes later, the Girls landed on the front steps of the main building. Blossom pulled her knee-length red hair from its ponytail, giving her head a quick shake so it would fall in a rippling wave of shiny locks. Her heavily made-up pink eyes scanned the surrounding area. She was making potential fatality estimates of her peers, as she had since kindergarten.  
  
Bubbles ran her hand over her single high ponytail, reassuring herself that the trip from home had not ripped the scrunchie from her hair, as it was apt to do when the girls were running late. She hugged a worn notebook to her chest and skipped up the steps happily.  
  
Buttercup didn't even do a hair check, not caring if her scruffy, gel- smothered black hair was messy. That was the look she preferred. Pulling her sweatshirt's hood up, she discreetly inserted her headphones into her ears and pushed play on her Walkman. Good, hard, loud rock music streamed into her ears. Eyes closed and head bobbing slightly, she shuffled off, black hiking boots scuffing the linoleum.  
  
****  
  
The Girls had first period together, Freshman Seminar. Mr. Posdar, the young teacher of the class, smiled and announced,  
  
"We have some new students in class today. Please welcome Sybil, Saffron, and Sierra…" He glanced over to the three grouped by the door, "Sorry. Your last name is…?"  
  
"Un-un-un-i-um." The tallest girl answered slowly, enunciating the separate syllables. She had shoulder-length black hair and large purple eyes, and wore a pair of plum-colored pants and a black satiny blouse. "Just call me Sybil 'Unium."  
  
"Thank you, Miss 'Unium. You and your sisters can sit behind Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup."  
  
Sybil nodded, moving silently through the rows to take a seat behind Blossom. On her left, the golden-eyed girl with long, loose blonde hair sat behind Bubbles. Bubbles turned and smiled at the girl.  
  
"Hi, I'm Bubbles. Nice to meet you."  
  
"My name is Saffron." Saffron spoke in a soft, melodic voice. She wore a white dress with a long, pale gold robe over it. A smile, strangely unsettling, formed on her lips. "I've heard all about you, Bubbles."  
  
"Oh, that's cool!"  
  
"Bubbles, what have I told you about talking in class?" Mr. Posdar warned.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
While this was going on, Buttercup had turned in her seat to glare at the new girl behind her. Sierra returned her glare from behind red-tinted sunglasses. Sierra was dressed all in black, even her lips and nails, like Buttercup herself. Sierra pushed her glasses down to the tip of her nose, narrowing her dark gray eyes and shoving her black-and-red bangs out of the way.  
  
"What's up with you?" Buttercup growled.  
  
"Nothin'. You're Buttercup, right?"  
  
"Yeah. What's it to ya?"  
  
"Nothin', Powerpuff."  
  
****  
  
At lunchtime, the Girls were called into the office. It was a call from Mayor Bellum.  
  
"Girls! I'm sorry to interrupt you at school, but there have been reports of three new super-villains tearing up the Volcanotop Observatory in Townsville Park."  
  
"No problem, Mayor Bellum." Blossom said confidently, "We'll take care of it."  
  
Buttercup slammed a fist into her open palm. "All right! Let's go kick some ass!"  
  
As the Girls crashed through the picture window of the main office, the secretary was heard shouting, "Good luck!"  
  
****  
  
Mojo Jojo was trapped in his Observatory, unable to do anything but wait for the three super-villains to break through his defenses and get to him.  
  
Six years ago, he had entered treatment for his megalomania and world- domination compulsions, reemerging from the Townsburg Mental Hospital a new monkey. He now used his genius for good, not evil. And apparently, that had earned him some new enemies.  
  
A black streak of energy flashed in his field of vision, and a rain of reinforced concrete fragments pelted him. "Hey, Mojo! Come out and play- ay!"  
  
"Who are you? What do you want?"  
  
Purple lightning flashed, shattering the glass portions of the ceiling. The auxiliary force field activated instantly. Three female forms hovered above the field.  
  
The black-haired, purple-clad one shouted, "We're the Sourpuff Girls! And we…"  
  
"Want you…" continued the golden female.  
  
"To DIE!" The black-clad girl with reddish black hair screamed. She dove for the force field and slammed a fist into it.  
  
Mojo hit the button that triggered a defensive power surge. The girl shrieked and was blown into a nearby tree.  
  
"Now you've done it, monkey-boy!" yelled the first speaker, who was obviously the leader. The girls regrouped and assumed an attack formation.  
  
"Stop right there!" Blossom shouted. The villains turned to face them.  
  
Bubbles gasped. "Saffron?"  
  
Blossom's eyes widened. "Sybil!"  
  
"Sierra…" Buttercup hissed.  
  
To Be Continued… 


	2. Don't Monkey With Me

Title: The Dark Side of Powerpuff  
  
Author: SchizoAuthoress  
  
Rating: R  
  
Warnings: Extreme violence, language, death  
  
Chapter Summary: In the present, the Sourpuff Girls have just started to destroy Mojo's facilities. Mojo is good now, but why? And why does the SPG want him dead?  
  
"The Dark Side of Powerpuff: Don't Monkey With Me"  
  
Townsville, six years from the present…  
  
Ms. Bellum had just run a successful campaign against the Mayor of Townsville. She was now the mayor, and looked to be so for a long time.  
  
The Powerpuff Girls, the eleven-year-old superheroes of Townsville, had just apprehended Mojo Jojo in the middle of one of his city-destroying, world-conquering plots once again. Mayor Bellum had decided that it was time for alternative action in regards to the manic monkey.  
  
She sent him to Townsburg, a neighboring city renowned for its medical advances and programs.  
  
He emerged only a year later, with his mental disorders apparently cured. But were they?  
  
****  
  
Townsburg Mental Hospital…  
  
"I am Mojo Jojo, and I will take over the world! Taking over the world is what I do, or actually what I would do if those *stupid* little Powerpuffs didn't stop me! If they didn't stop me, I would take over the world, which I will do because I am…Mo-jo Jojo!"  
  
"Oi! Shut up, Jojo."  
  
Mojo Jojo spun around dramatically, which was not as effective as usual, seeing as he's had his purple cape traded in for a white straitjacket. He was now facing a tall, very angular woman with jet black hair and sinister brown eyes. Everything about her seemed severe, from her stiletto heels to her tight bun.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"I believe you know that already, Jojo." The woman said calmly, making a notation on her clipboard. Mojo Jojo snarled.  
  
"Do not call me 'Jojo,' for that is not my full name! I am Mo--"  
  
"Mojo Jojo, yes. That's what you call yourself now, but the first name you were given was 'Jojo.'"  
  
Mojo's eyes widened suddenly. "I know you! But…it cannot be…"  
  
With a soft, persistant tone to her voice, the woman asked, "Who am I, Jojo?"  
  
"You're…Professor Unununium! Professor Utonium's girlfriend!"  
  
"Ex-girlfriend." The lady professor corrected with sudden bitter intensity. She reached out to Mojo Jojo and patted him on the head. "Remember, we raised you…we developed all those prototypes for Chemical X…"  
  
"And you left." Mojo accused.  
  
The Professor's brown eyes flashed with anger. "He made me leave. He didn't want me to share in the glory of a super-power-inducing chemical or anything! Ellis Utonium used me for my knowledge and dumped me the minute he was close to his goals!  
  
"But I'll show him! I'll destroy the bastard!" She laughed, an eerie, cold sound. Mojo shivered. "And you, dear little Jojo, will help me."  
  
"H-how?" Mojo stammered. She smiled at him, and began unfastening the buckles holding him in the straitjacket. As she did so, she explained.  
  
"You figured out how to make evil little boys. But you used a cheap substitute for Chemical X, and they were easily destroyed. The Powerpuff Girls created a good, new little girl, but she was unstable to the very base of her components. Together, you and I can create the perfect *evil* little girls!"  
  
"Evil…little girls?" Mojo whispered. Professor Unununium nodded, and he cried, "Genius! Miranda 'Unium, I'll do it!"  
  
****  
  
After the success of his mental treatments, Mojo Jojo indeed helped Professor Miranda Unununium create the perfect evil little girls. And then she wiped his memory clean, ensuring that he would not use the information against them.  
  
But the memories still haunted him…for many, many years…and one night, he contacted the lady Professor by phone, confessing that he could no longer hide such a terrible thing from Townsville.  
  
The 'Unium sisters arrived the next day.  
  
****  
  
Snakes…  
  
Spice…  
  
And Things-Not-Nice…  
  
These were the ingredients chosen to create the prefect evil little girls.  
  
As instructed by Mojo Jojo, Professor Unununium added an untested chemical prototype to the concoction…  
  
*Prototype X-57*  
  
Thus, the Sourpuff Girls were born!  
  
Using their unstable superpowers, Sybil, Saffron, and Sierra have dedicated their lives to fighting good and the forces of justice!  
  
To Be Continued… 


	3. We Can't All Just Get Along

Title: The Dark Side of Powerpuff  
  
Author: SchizoAuthoress  
  
Rating: R  
  
Warnings: Extreme violence, language, death  
  
Summary: Ten years after the current series, the fifteen-year-old Powerpuff Girls are living a semi-normal life as superheroes on hiatus. Alerted to the destruction-in-progress of Mojo Jojo's Observatory, they arrive to discover that the new girls in their first period are really a team of evil super-villains. A battle ensues, with a surprising conclusion…  
  
"The Dark Side of Powerpuff: We Can't All Just Get Along"  
  
"Sierra…" Buttercup hissed, "I should have known!"  
  
Sierra laughed wickedly. "Oh, shut up! You need to get knocked off your high pedestal, Powerpuff!"  
  
Buttercup sneered contemptuously, making a mocking 'come-hither' motion with one hand. "Bring it, bitch!"  
  
The black flash and the green one met in an explosion of opposing energies. Buttercup managed to block Sierra's furious punches, but the Sourpuff got past her defenses with a knee to the abdomen.  
  
Buttercup retaliated with a double front kick leading into back flip that caught Sierra in the chest and crashed her to the ground. Both sister- teams descended to the ground to continue the battle.  
  
Sybil and Blossom stuck to laser warfare, torching surrounding trees and clipping the other Girls around them. Neither Buttercup nor Sierra was gaining the advantage in their hand-to-hand, and Bubbles was too busy trying to talk sense into Saffron to fight to her best ability.  
  
"Saffron, why are you doing this?" Bubbles demanded, deflecting a phoenix- eye fist aimed for her right temple. Saffron remained alarmingly composed as she knocked Bubbles to her knees and replied,  
  
"This is what we do."  
  
Bubbles rolled away from the golden Sourpuff's attempted stomp to her solar plexus and jumped to her feet. "Please, Saffron, I don't want to fight you!"  
  
There was a strangled scream above them.  
  
Bubbles looked up in horror to see Sybil choking Buttercup from behind as Sierra repeatedly hammered both fists against Buttercup's already battered body. Bubble's blue gaze scanned for Blossom, who was held back by intermittent charges of Sybil's purple lightning.  
  
"Bubbles! Make some noise!" Blossom cried. She was immediately electrocuted by a thousand-volt blast from Sybil. The redheaded leader of the Powerpuff Girls fell flat on her back, body smoking a bit and wracked by violent coughs.  
  
"Blossom!" Bubbles shouted. Saffron suddenly spinning rear-kicked her from behind.  
  
"Fight me, coward."  
  
"Nooooo!" Bubbles wailed. Midway through her cry, it transformed into her infamous Sonic Scream, causing the Sourpuffs to freeze and cover their ears in pain.  
  
Although her ears throbbed in unholy agony, Buttercup prepared for her special attack. Both her fists ignited with a green energy-fire, and she yelled, "Power Punch Cyclone!"  
  
The tall, dark-haired Powerpuff jumped into the air and began to spin (A/N: much as in "Powerpuff Bluff") toward the incapacitated 'Unium sisters. In a few seconds, the three evil girls went flying into various painful things like trees, rocks, and the volcano's slope.  
  
An almost unnatural silence fell, punctuated only by the groans of the wounded. Bubbles ran to Blossom's side and helped her to her feet.  
  
"Bloss, are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah, fine…" Blossom coughed.  
  
"Let's get these wicked rip-offs!" Buttercup screamed in rage.  
  
Sybil stood shakily on her feet and lifted a hand to the sky. Purple electric sparks crackled on her palm, then fizzled away. "I'm shocked…" she muttered.  
  
"What a time for the powers to act up," Sierra growled. She snapped her fingers, resulting in a lighter-sized flame and nothing else.  
  
Blossom whispered incredulously, "They've been weakened. Bubbles, another Sonic Scream!"  
  
Bubbles transferred her sister to Buttercup's strong arms and stepped forward to face the Sourpuff Girls. "I don't want to do this, but…*Yaaaaaahh!*"  
  
Sybil covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to build up an energy defense. Sierra wrapped her arms protectively around her much-more- weakened sister.  
  
Saffron, however, remained on her feet. The pale blue waves that signified the sound of Bubbles's attack appeared to bend around the golden aura surrounding her. Her eyes were tightly shut, and her lips moved silently.  
  
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, glowing a harsh, painfully bright gold. "Silence!" She yelled, raising her voice for the first time since they'd seen her.  
  
Bubbles wheezed and grabbed her throat in surprise. Only a faint whimper came from her mouth as she attempted to attack again.  
  
Saffron stepped back, reaching out both hands to her sisters. The Sourpuff Girls made their exit, heralded by a single trail of yellow-gold energy.  
  
To Be Continued… 


	4. Clean Up Crew

Title: The Dark Side of Powerpuff  
  
Author: D. L. SchizoAuthoress  
  
Rating: R  
  
Warnings: Extreme violence, language, death  
  
Dedication: Red and Hairy Gregory, who were the first to read my fic and reviewed so kindly!  
  
Summary: The Powerpuffs worry, Sourpuffs heal, the evil Professor 'Unium remembers and plots more evil to come.  
  
A/N: Thank you to my great reviewers! Sorry it took so long, and apologies for the shortness of chapter. I'm a very prolific writer...click on the link to my profile if you need proof. I have so many stories, I had to re-read this one to get back into the spirit of it. If anyone wants to help me finish this fic, email me with ideas at schizoauthoress@hotmail.com  
  
"The Dark Side of Powerpuff: Clean-up Crew"   
  
Blossom and Bubbles watched as the paramedics carefully loaded the critically injured Mojo Jojo into the ambulance. Buttercup stared at her hands, thinking about what the genius-monkey had said as the Girls pulled him out of the wreck of the Observatory...  
  
"Totally destroyed...everything will be...totally destroyed. You can't stop them...no one can..."  
  
It was strange, the way the Girls were feeling. Once, they would have been glad to be rid of Mojo Jojo, but they had never seriously entertained the notion that 'to be rid of' him might mean that he would die. But now, more mature and with four years of working *with* Mojo instead of against him, they had come to like him...perhaps even think of him more in the terms of an older brother, which he was, in a way.  
  
A medic came to the Powerpuffs and asked if the Girls felt the need for medical assistance. They declined, and flew away.   
  
As they made their way back to school and fourth period, Blossom explained, "It's not the powers I'm worried about, really. Obviously, we're evenly matched, except for that weird thing where they got really weak all of a sudden. It's more that...these girls are willing to *kill* their enemies. Are we?"  
  
****  
  
Professor Miranda Unununium made a few notations on her clipboard as she observed the Sourpuff Girls in their recovery tanks. The teens floated, suspended in a clear solution and hooked up to various monitering machines. They were clad in black bodysuits with wires coming out of them. Only Saffron had her eyes open.  
  
"X-59 has the same shortcomings as the other prototypes...for all the help Jojo gave me, I still am no closer to making the perfect evil girls..." Miranda growled. It had taken her fifty-seven attempts to create a formula that would even give her Girls the basic powers of flight, strength, and speed. X-58 had spurred the development of each Girl's signature powers, but the effectiveness wore off after a year, causing Miranda to make X-59.  
  
It was a diluted solution of X-59 in which the Sourpuffs were submerged. The chemical would be absorbed into their bodies and utilized in the exertion of their strengths. Saffron, through her studies in various forms of meditation and the martial arts, had figured out a way to create a reserve of energy for her signature power, but neither of her sister's seemed to possess a similar faculty.   
  
"Dammit!" Dr. 'Unium screamed, flinging the clipboard to the ground. Sheets of paper flew everywhere in a miniature snowstorm-like flurry. Saffron jumped nervously, and Sierra's eyes snapped open. "Damn you, Ellis! Why did you have to be so selfish??"  
  
****  
  
[Flashback, two years before the Powerpuff Girls were created...]  
  
"Jojo, Jojo," a pretty young woman crooned in a playful sing-song voice as she signed words with the lab monkey. She had an angular look to her, but her high cheekbones and sharp chin were softened by the wisps of stray jet black hair that had worked loose from her ponytail and fell into her brown eyes. "Who's a good monkey?" She asked, her hands moving to ask the question as Jojo could understand it--sign language.  
  
"Miranda? Are you playing with Jojo *again*?"  
  
Miranda called back, "We agreed to train Jojo as a lab assistant. I'm working with him."  
  
"When I make the proper modifications to his voicebox, he won't need to know sign language. You're wasting your time, Miranda."   
  
Jojo signed, "Ellis is mean, but Miranda is nice. Jojo likes to play with Miranda."  
  
"Silly Jojo," Miranda signed silently, "You always like to play. But Ellis wants to work now."  
  
"Mean Ellis," Jojo insisted. "Mean Ellis Utonium."  
  
****  
  
"You were right, Jojo...God, were you ever right..." Miranda whispered, gathering her papers with shaking hands. There were tears in her eyes, but she stubbornly denied to herself that she was going to cry. She had done all her crying over Ellis Utonium over fifteen years ago.  
  
When Professor Utonium's 'Project Superpower' (as they had called it at the time), was notified that they were eligible to recieve a huge federal grant--on the condition that the United States Army alone could use it, to breed super-soldiers--Miranda was all for it. Ellis disagreed, being of the opinion that science for science's sake was the only reason to do research. A terrible row resulted, ending with Ellis telling Miranda to leave--that everything between them was over and done with.  
  
Miranda had packed her bags in a rush, exchanged a few final bitter words with her former lover, and silently vowed a revenge in some distant 'someday'. But now, it seemed as though that 'someday' had finally come. She was a little upset that her memory suppression programming had failed, that Jojo had begun to remember his assistance to her, because it forced her to eliminate him and show her hand a little earlier than she had planned.   
  
But even that tiny detour from her strategy had its benefits. Now she understood the extent of the enemy's power. That her Girls would have to transfer from South Townsville High was a given. Miranda smiled and pressed her left hand to Sybil's recovery tank. Purple eyes, huge and disoriented, stared back at her.  
  
"Girls," she said, loud enough to be heard through the bulletproofed glass, her cold eyes fixing upon each daughter in turn before she continued, "how does education from a private academy sound to you?"  
  
END  
  
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*  
  
More Notes: Each 'puff has a special power, as I'm sure you noticed. But I decided to make it easy for you guys and put a little chart up. (Okay, I'm lying, I just like to make charts and tables about fic info. But it helps, you know.)  
  
Blossom--Ice Breath  
  
Bubbles--Sonic Scream, talking to animals  
  
Buttercup--Those energy blasts and her whirlwind attack (also seen in the '03 Powerpuff Christmas special.)  
  
Sybil--Power over Lighting/Electricity   
  
Saffron--The ability to control sound waves (unsure of what to call it, exactly)  
  
Sierra--Firepower (literally) 


	5. My World Was Crumbling Down

Title: The Dark Side of Powerpuff  
Author: D. L. SchizoAuthoress  
Rating: R  
Warnings: Extreme violence, language, death 

Summary: Professor Utonium is forced to remember a past that he would much rather forget. But you know what they say...those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Meanwhile, the Sourpuffs are about to make some new allies at their new school.

"The Dark Side of Powerpuff: I Dreamed that My World was Crumbling Down"

Professor Utonium sat in the hospital waiting room, nervously waiting for news of Mojo Jojo's condition from the emergency room doctor. Because of the numerous monster attacks and super-villain plots that Townsville was the focus of, medical service was the largest field of work in the city. And because many of the injured people who came in were fleeing destruction, all Townsville hospitals included a competant veterinary staff on the payroll -- to deal with hurts suffered by the pets of Townsville as well.

St. Francis Cabrini Hospital and Children's Center, the one nearest to the Volcanotop Observatory, was no exception to the rule. And, because of its proximity to the epicenter of the city, the hospital was only three stories high at most aboveground, occupying a large sprawl of buildings spread over several city blocks. The most critical patients were kept in the lower levels, where they could be guaranteed extra protection from rampaging monsters and the like. The occupants of Townsville were stubborn and proud, but not stupid.

It had already been several hours since the attack of the Sourpuff Girls. The Professor had watched the attack on his laboratory TV, and rushed to St. Francis as soon as the hospital had been named. He alone knew just what the attack signified; he alone knew why, the deepest, darkest why, it had happened.

And so he sat in the small room, enduring the sympathetic eyes of the admitting nurse, and was tortured by guilt.

-----

_On the night that Miranda left..._

"Ellis, you are a fool!" Miranda Unununium declared. She brushed the loose strands of her hair from her face with a sharp, irritated motion. "Don't you understand what we're being offered here? This federal grant will solve all of our financial difficulties! No more favors called in from old colleagues who don't believe in us anyway; no more selling off of our so-called luxury items to scape together enough money for a good genetic sequencer. No more begging for loans from the banks!"

"You want to sell your scientific integrity to the government! To the military!" Professor Utonium accused. "You might as well sell your soul!"

"If Project Superpower isn't to create super-powered soldiers, then what is it for?" Miranda demanded. She slapped her open palm down on the top of his desk, scattering a few papers. "To give to the common man? Ha! You might as well say that you're giving it to the common criminal! Superpowers won't save us, it won't balance the scales for the poor and underpriviledged! Superpowers will only raise the stakes, and increase the damage done by war and crime!"

"Who says we have to use our findings? Isn't it enough to discover the potential, the abilities?"

"Idealist." Miranda snarled, and she made it sound like a curse word. "Do that, and every unscrupulous hack with a Masters in Genetics will find a way to exploit your findings. Pure science is dead, Ellis. Ever since the atom bomb, all scientific discoveries have been twisted to military use in the end. At least we can control who it goes to, with this government deal. At least now, only competant, well-trained, psychologically balanced soldiers will be empowered."

"You're insane..." Ellis murmured.

Miranda drew back, stung by the accusation. And more, of the conviction behind Ellis's words. Her eyes hardened, looking like polished shards of agate as she stared at him.

"Get out!" Ellis shouted suddenly. Miranda jumped back, lifting her arms to shield an expected blow. It never came, but her lover's next words might have been such a blow, for all the pain they caused her. "Get out! Right now! It's over, Miranda -- everything! I never want to see you again!"

Miranda glared at the young, dark-haired Professor. "How dare you! How dare you!"

Professor slumped in his chair, hiding his face in his hands. He'd dared. He'd dared to toss Miranda out on her ear, to steal her portion of their shared research, to denounce her as a fraud within the circle of the scientific community. And she'd promised him that vengeance would come to him, someday.

-----

And now it had. Now it had, and her amorphous promise of vengeance now had a name -- the Sourpuff Girls. It was like a slap in the face. Everything he'd worked for, trampled on by the one woman he'd ever really trusted. All his work in balancing the scales toward true equality and safety for all, upset by Miranda's creations in eerie echo of her words during their last fight. Even her method of revenge was an insult, to himself and to the three Girls he'd made, however accidentally that had come about.

Ellis Utonium had lived with a lie for a long time -- building walls around it, building a life atop it -- the lie that he had acted alone in the development of Chemical X. The lie that his three children had no mother. Because they did have a mother...Miranda Unununium, a mother who was truly insane after years of rejection and hardship.

And because of his lie, the Powerpuff Girls also had sisters who hated them.

-----

Though it killed her to do it, Buttercup managed to wait until the end of the school day before she rocketed at high speed toward the hospital. Blossom followed, at a more sedate pace, irritated by Buttercup's impatience. Bubbles flew at the redhead's side, looking uncharacteristically solemn.

"Mojo will be all right, won't he?" Bubbles asked her.

Blossom sighed. "I don't know, Bubbles. But he looked pretty bad."

"Yeah," Bubbles agreed in a tiny voice, "He did."

Buttercup was waiting for them in the main lobby. "He's in critical condition. They've got him on sub-level six; emergency operating room." The black-haired Powerpuff scuffed the toe of her boot against the linoleum of the reception area. "Doctor Minaas and his team have been operating for hours, and his condition still hasn't stablized."

The three Powerpuff Girls exchanged looks of concern. Doctor Miles Minaas was the most skilled surgeon at St. Francis Cabrini. And, because it was Mojo Jojo, his team was sure to include Doctor Helen Giske, the head of veterinary medicine. If it had already been hours, and Mojo had not improved in that space of time...

"Let's go to the emergency room on sub-level six," Blossom said authoratatively. She had to keep their morale up.

None of them rushed this time. It was as if they believed, by not being there to hear the news, that they could stall any bad things from happening. But that isn't the way the world works. Upon their arrival at sub-level six, Bubbles ran from the elevators into the Professor's arms.

"Have they said anything yet?" she asked fearfully.

The Professor shook his head. Blossom and Buttercup embraced their father from each side. For a while, they remained that way, in a tight-knit four-way hug. A small cough from the doorway made them break apart -- it came from a very solemn-looking Doctor Giske.

"We've done everything possible," the doctor said quietly, shaking her dark, curly head. "But he's beyond our help."

"Is he...dead?" Blossom choked out.

"No. Not yet." Doctor Giske replied. She turned away, pushing open the door to the operating rooms, and held it. "He's asking for you...all four of you."

-----

"Hey, Mojo Jojo," Buttercup managed to say, holding onto Mojo's left hand gently, "we're all here."

"Buttercup..." Mojo whispered. His voice was little more than breath, shaky and soft. "I wish to... to apologize..."

"You don't need to do that, Mojo!" Blossom interjected. Bubbles nodded in agreement on the right side of the bed, to overcome by tears to speak.

Mojo favored the redheaded Powerpuff with a small smile. "But I do. It's my fault... mine. Those other Girls... they came to kill me... to prevent me..." He coughed, and there was blood on his teeth when next he spoke. "To stop me from telling you... telling you about them. For... I... I know..."

The simian began to shudder and coughed even more violently. The Professor placed a soothing hand on Mojo's brow, and wound an arm around Bubbles's trembling shoulders. "Don't try to speak, Mojo."

But terrible knowledge shone in those hyper-intelligent black eyes, knowledge that Mojo Jojo felt that he must share, or be damned forever. He loosed his hand from Buttercup's grasp, and, for the first time in nearly two decades, used sign language to communicate.

"I know..." The Professor translated, "how your enemies were created. I helped Professor's old partner make them, when I was in Townsburg. She tried to erase my memory, but it didn't work. I told her that I would reveal this secret to you. Then...they came..."

Exhausted, Mojo let his hands fall. "Ellis," he rasped, and a bloody froth formed on his greenish face. "Ellis, tell them...the rest. The truth..."

"Oh, no, Mojo!" Bubbles burst out suddenly, and embraced him. Mojo stroked her fine blonde hair for a moment, and then went still. The heart rate monitor flat-lined.

-----

A week had passed. Each member of the Utonium family was left alone to their mourning. But Blossom did not forget Mojo's last words, nor the strange sign he'd made while using sign language that day. Blossom had since scanned every book on American Sign Language that she owned, but as she suspected, it wasn't in them.

And a sign like that could only be one thing -- a name. But why had the Professor left it out? What name did he not want them to know?

-----

"Unununium," the yellow-eyed blonde repeated. "Saffron."

"That's such a long name," her new classmate replied. Like all of the students, as well as Saffron, this girl wore a dark grey pleated skirt with a matching jacket over a white blouse. She tapped her dressy black shoes against the leg of Saffron's chair, and her pencil against her mouth, as she studied the blonde girl. There was something judgmental and troubling in her eyes as she looked at Saffron.

"My sisters and I usually shorten it to 'Unium."

"It's a weird name." The girl said decidedly.

There was something dangerous in Saffron's soft tone as she murmured, "Oh?"

"Yeah," the girl said, smiling in a nasty, cruel way. "The only other one in this Academy with such a weird name is that criminal girl."

"What 'criminal girl' is that?" Sierra asked coldly, enjoying the way that the classmate jumped at the sound of her voice.

The girl turned, a biting retort ready, but fell silent at the look on Sierra's face. The 'Unium sister's expression clearly showed that Sierra was in no mood for bullshit. Pale-faced and a little shaken, the girl replied, "She's the one who used to get in trouble with the law as a kid. Princess Morebucks, that's her."

"Thank you," the pair chorused.

Sierra purred, "That wasn't so difficult, now, was it?"

**To be continued...**


End file.
